Heads or Tails
by aMUSEment345
Summary: One shot. The BAU is given an unusual task. Inspired by current events. Team fic.


**This won't be everyone's cup of tea (you'll see what I did there). But it was oh, so therapeutic. If you choose to comment, please make sure it is on the story, and not…you know. That's what Facebook is for, isn't it? Season seven team, just because I prefer it.**

* * *

 **Heads or Tails**

"I know that you know our case material is always confidential. But I need to emphasize, for the purposes of this exercise, that there is to be no discussion of this case…..no discussion at all….with anyone but the team."

The others exchanged glances as the normally dour Aaron Hotchner sounded far more dour than usual. Derek Morgan took a stab at probing.

"I take it there's something _that_ special about this case?"

Hotch's brows came together in a dark V.

"There is something that special about the _subject_ of our study."

"Which is what?" asked Rossi, unable to keep a skeptical curiosity from his tone.

"The more accurate question is, 'which is _who_ '. I am not permitted to give you the person's name. Let's just say he's a high profile figure."

Another exchange of glances. Hotch had just given them a clue, and they were all certain he'd done so on purpose. JJ decided to speak it for the rest.

"So our unsub is a male, then?"

"He's not….. well, technically, he's not an 'unsub'. But I guess that's as good a term as any, for the purposes of our work."

Reid wasn't sure what to make of that. "Are you saying he hasn't committed a crime? Assuming we _can_ assume it's a 'he'."

Hotch nodded. "It's a 'he'. But that's all I can really tell you."

Emily was sardonic. "I'm guessing you can't tell us who requested this report either, then?"

"Correct."

"Well," sighed Morgan as he pulled a folder toward him, "I'm guessing the fact that we're on paper and not electronic is significant. Not to mention that Garcia doesn't seem to be a part of this."

"I can't….."

Rossi stopped his old friend mid-sentence. "We get it, Aaron. It's hush-hush, and no one who's not a profiler can know about it."

Reid chuckled. "Anybody remember the old 'Mission Impossible'? Maybe these papers will self-destruct when the mission is completed."

The others gave him a tired look.

"Spence…"

"Sorry."

Hotch moved several more stacks of folders in front of his youngest profiler. He knew how to keep his youngest out of trouble.

"We'll stay convened until we have an opinion. Look through the material provided. Reid, I thought I'd give you some additional reading material, to keep you occupied until the others are done."

JJ actually laughed out loud at the look on Reid's face. Anyone else might have felt put upon when given extra work to do. But Reid seemed thrilled to have the opportunity to busy himself while the rest pored through their papers at a rate five times slower than his.

Morgan laughed as well. "There you go, Pretty Boy," patting Reid on the back. "Make sure you don't miss anything. The rest of the class will need a report whenever you're done."

"Ha, ha, very funny," said their resident genius. Then he directed his words to their superior.

"Do you think we could get…."

The door flung open, admitting Penelope Garcia and a large tray filled with steaming mugs.

"Coffee service! If I can't cybersnoop, at least I can caffeinate you, my faithful profilers."

"Right on time, Garcia," said Reid, grabbing a cup. "Thanks."

The others took advantage of the stimulant libation as well, and waved as Garcia bid them adieu. Then they got busy reading.

* * *

An hour later, Spencer Reid impatiently waggled his pencil and tapped his foot. He made sequential eye contact with the bent head of each of his colleagues, willing them to be done. At what seemed like a very long last, Aaron Hotchner's head lifted. Then Emily's, and Rossi's, and Morgan's, and JJ's.

 _Finally!_

Hotch made sure he had everyone's attention, and then gestured to Reid.

"Background?"

Reid launched into what he'd seen in the files that had gone exclusively to him.

"Our subject…." No longer 'unknown' to him. There had been too much information in the background….and even in the current case files…for him not to recognize whom they were profiling.

"Our subject was born into a life of privilege. He lived away from home beginning in his early teen years, but eventually was welcomed into the family business, where he worked until he branched out on his own."

Emily thought she recognized the pattern. "Boarding school?"

"Military school. He had some behavior issues early on, so…"

"Ah," said Rossi, "the old 'trial-by-drill-sergeant'."

"But he came back to the family business." Morgan echoed what Reid had said. "So, no 'daddy issues'? What _do_ we know about the father-son relationship?"

Reid shook his head. "It's only implied. They weren't close, obviously, during the time our subject lived away from home."

Emily Prentiss added her own hypothesis. "Which means they might not have been all that close before, right? If he was sent away to school?"

"Again, there's definitely an implied distance there, until he came back to work for his father."

Rossi was curious. "How did he do in that school?"

"Pretty well, actually. He was a good athlete, rose up the ranks. He ended up placed pretty highly, but there's an indication that it was done for the purpose of removing him from his prior position, where he may not have been leading as well as was expected."

Emily recognized the process immediately.

"They got rid of him by promoting him right on out? Sounds like the State Department. I probably saw that happen at least a dozen times while my mother was an ambassador."

JJ was skeptical. "So they _promote_ them? Doesn't that just reward bad behavior?"

"They send them off to some nominal position that sounds impressive, but really just gets them out of everyone's hair. It's done all the time."

The looks of familiarity on the faces of Hotch and Rossi told the others that the FBI made use of the process as well. At a nod from his unit chief, Reid continued his narrative.

"Well, whether or not it was true, our subject bought into it. By his own account, he was very successful there. Then he went on to college….changed schools midway, but it looks like that was for coursework, and not for bad behavior. Then he came back to the family business, and did well enough to branch off on his own."

"So, maybe there _were_ some leadership skills," offered JJ.

Reid nodded. "And money. He had financial support from his family to get his business going. He amassed quite a bit of wealth...and a reputation."

"As?" asked Morgn.

"As a dealmaker. Although it sounds like he broke quite a few deals, too. He was demanding, and refused to pay for work that he considered inferior."

"Hmph," snarked Rossi. "Wish I could have done that with my last plumber."

"I would have liked to do the same with my first babysitter," agreed JJ.

"Or one of my old boyfriends," added Emily.

That got them laughing, and Hotch had to remind them that the task before them was a serious one. He indicated that Reid should continue.

"All right, well, he seemed to get away with not paying, more often than not. There were lawsuits, but they were either dropped because of cost, or settled for very low amounts. It looks like that pattern has continued to the present."

"Yeah, I saw a few references about it in recent history," affirmed Morgan. "So, he's successful, demanding…."

"Untrustworthy…" JJ added to the litany. "The thing I don't get is why people continued to do business with him, if he behaved like that. It looks like he's still pretty successful." Gesturing to the folder in her hands.

"Sometimes, my dear.." Rossi replied, "..fame is its own reward. And its own leverage. For instance, I've been approached a number of times to get involved 'off the record' in one project or another, just because of my books, just because they've heard of me. Some of them haven't even _read_ my books. They just want a 'name' attached to their investigation. And they offer a pretty penny for it."

This was a surprise to all of them, save Hotch. JJ voiced it.

"But…you've stayed with the team. You even came back to the BAU, after you'd already retired."

"Because it's the _work_ that I love. The purpose of it, making the world a safer place, so people can enjoy their lives. The books were about that, too. I wrote them because I thought, if people were more aware, they might be able to keep themselves safer. The money was just a pleasant side effect. But I don't need to get involved in these new things, that are all about the sensational. Sure, the money is nice. But I have enough money. What am I going to do with more? Gold-plate everything?"

"Funny you should mention that," said Reid. "Because that's pretty much what our subject has been doing for a few decades. He amasses wealth, sometimes at the expense of others, and lavishes it on himself and his family."

JJ made a face. "He gold-plates everything?" Assuming Reid hadn't meant it literally. Repulsed at the idea because her tastes ran to much simpler things.

"Pretty much."

"Ugh."

Morgan got them started on the profile. "So far we've got a subject who feels entitled, and maybe a bit grandiose. I could argue that he's wanting in the area of having a conscience, but can't really call him amoral yet."

"I think we also have to call him manipulative, if he's able to get away without paying for work he's contracted for," added JJ.

"And that also makes him destructive, considering the fallout for those businesses." Emily agreed with her female colleague.

Hotch moved them forward. "That brings us to the more recent documents. They show us a pattern of power-acquisition, and ongoing power-seeking."

"He's also been making a clear effort to control his own publicity," added Morgan.

Emily agreed. "Definitely. He's pretty aggressive in calling out anyone who says anything negative about him."

Rossi ticked it off on his fingers. "All right. To the rest, we add 'egocentric' and 'aggressive'."

"And," added Reid, as he drew two pieces of paper from his 'new' folder, "I think we can definitely make a call on 'manipulative'. He's a pretty cunning reader of people, and knows enough to tell them what they want to hear. See here, in these two statements, made to different audiences, he says exactly the opposite things. And these were only a week apart."

JJ added to it. "And I notice that he uses the phrase 'some people say' whatever, and then references it as established fact."

"He's also contradicted quite a few actual occurrences, and blamed others for misinterpreting what they saw and heard," observed Emily, paging through her folder.

"So we can tick off 'uses projection." Rossi was quoting from the official diagnostic manual, and they all knew it. They also all knew something else.

"All right, I guess I'll say it," announced Morgan. "We'd have to be crazy not to know who our subject is. But the question is, why is the BAU looking at him?"

"And who ordered us to?" Emily wanted to know.

Hotch looked sternly around the table, taking in each set of eyes in turn.

"I'm not at liberty to say who passed the order to me. But I _can_ tell you that the actual order originated at a point much higher up."

Rossi nodded knowingly. "Multiple rungs of secrecy. The better to keep one's job. And one's head."

Morgan was still frustrated. "All right, I'll buy that we can't know who issued the order. But what's the point of the exercise? It's pretty much public knowledge that he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder."

"Trait," Reid corrected him. "He has narcissistic personality trait. It's not technically a disorder until it has consequences for him."

Emily erupted into a snark. "You mean it's not enough that it causes trouble for everyone else?!"

JJ and Reid were the only two profilers who actually held degrees in psychology. And she agreed with her friend.

"Spence is right. Technically, it's just a trait. I mean, really, every last one of us can find ourselves in the DSM, described as one kind of personality or another. But our personalities are not considered disorders until they cause problems for us."

"All right," said Emily, "I'll ask. What kinds of problems could a narcissist possibly endure?"

Reid took that one. "Mostly depression, when he doesn't get what he thinks he is due. But, in this case, where our subject is seeking adulation, he's pretty much gotten it. Or he's able to convince himself that he's gotten it."

Emily sighed in frustration. "So, then, back to the question of why? Why ask us to do this?"

Hotch hadn't been given the answer to that question. But he had a theory.

"I think we're being asked to project how his behaviors might play out, given the NPT. And what it would look like, if it progresses to NPD."

"And we can't know who wants this information." Rossi uttered it as a statement, and not a question.

Reid was uncomfortable about the situation, and not knowing who was directing it, nor why.

"Is there anything…..are we….is this considered treason?"

Five sets of brows raised at the question. But one set lowered quickly. He'd been here before.

"Treason and patriotism….heads and tails," said Rossi, "….they're both sides of the same coin. It just depends who's flipping it."

Emily was brought back to her youth. "It reminds me so much of some of the things my mother used to say, about the upheaval going on in some of the countries where she was posted. Those people were all dealing with the same question."

Reid still wasn't quite satisfied. "The thing is, guys, it kind of reminds me of things _my_ mother used to say, too. And that's not good."

Hotch tried to bring them back on track.

"All the BAU is being asked to do is to project the behavior of an unknown subject, based on the redacted information provided. It's what we do, it's what we're good at. So let's just stick to the task we've been given."

There ensued a long silence, as each of them regrouped and put their professional persona back in place. Satisfied that they were ready, Hotch started them off.

"Reid...where does 'grandiosity' bring him?"

"To overestimate both his own popularity and the scope of what he can accomplish. In this context, he will become easily frustrated by a built -in system of checks and balances."

"You know," posited Morgan, "we haven't talked about the paranoid aspect of the usual diagnosis. But that kind of push back could actually tip him into it."

Hotch realized they hadn't quite embraced the 'unknown' aspect of their task, but they were on a roll, and he let them continue.

Rossi took it from there. "Paranoia would almost certainly cause him to project blame onto others, and it could definitely trigger some acts of aggression."

"And then," added Emily, "the state of his conscience will determine who, or how many, or how badly, people are hurt."

Hotch agreed with her. "So it will come down to an assessment of his conscience. If it's lacking, there could be dire consequences. If it's developed, he might be able to fall back on it to temper his behavior."

"Well, technically," said JJ, "it would only mean that someone _else_ might be able to help him temper it. NPD isn't treatable with medication...right, Spence?" Looking to him for confirmation.

"JJ's right. It's only treatable with therapy, unless they develop depression. As you might expect, most people with NPD aren't amenable to therapy, because of the same traits that earn them the diagnosis. So the only hope is really for those who have a developed conscience. The success rate with NPD patients who are amoral is so miniscule as to be nonexistent."

"So, what are we saying here?,"asked Emily. "That there needs to be some attempt to measure the guy's conscience? How does one do that?"

JJ smiled, which prompted Hotch to call on her.

"What are you thinking?"

The blonde profiler seemed embarrassed. "Oh, it's nothing. I was just thinking about how much I worried over Henry, and whether or not I was any good at teaching him right from wrong. I know it's not quite the same as conscience, because that's internal. But I was trying to help him develop it."

Reid smiled in encouragement, having been privy to many of the moments in question, and having made his own, godfatherly, attempts at the same.

"It's not really different. I mean, if he's never developed one…..our subject, I mean, not Henry…. it's unlikely he can develop it now. But if it's just fallen out of use…..maybe it can be resuscitated." Reid tried to sound hopeful.

"So tell us, how did you do it with Henry?" Morgan encouraged his female colleague.

"One by one. I mean, we talked in general terms, but when I wanted him to really understand right from wrong, what it means to be kind or unkind to people, I always used the example of one of his friends, someone he knew. What would be right in that situation, what would be wrong. And he got it. Then, I would ask him if it would be right to treat that friend differently if he didn't know him yet. If he was from a different school, or had different friends. It took him a while to realize that we were talking about labels...mostly because I'm not very good at this,,,but he did. He got that, too."

They all took a moment to process her example in the context of their task. Hotch spoke next.

"So, to extrapolate..,.we're suggesting that our subject be approached by bringing individual case examples of….what?"

"Of the fallout of some of his proposals, for one thing," offered Reid. "It might be helpful for those closest to him to walk him through 'a day in the life' example for everything he wants to propose, or enact. Even for things he's already done, they can try to show him enough individual fallout that he starts to understand the scope of the problem.

"The other thing they can do," proposed Morgan, "is to appeal to his need for adulation. That will be easy enough when they're trying to convince him to be proactive on something. But it will be harder if they're trying to get him to retract a mistake. His ego will battle back, because he won't want to admit he's wrong about anything. But if they can convince him that the masses will applaud him for it, it just might work."

"And he'll be able to use his skills of projection and manipulation to put the blame elsewhere." Emily simply couldn't keep the sarcasm from her voice.

"All right," said Hotch. "I haven't heard any other pathologies put on the table. Are we agreed that NPT, or possibly NPD, are all we've got?"

The team was silent a moment as they pondered the question. It looked like the answer would be 'yes'. Until...

"Well," Reid said helpfully, "there's always the idea of the Manchurian candidate."

Groans emitted from around the table, as five pairs of eyes rolled in unison. A few more seconds, and those eyes started exchanging glances. Then Hotch stood up, phone in hand, and placed a call.

"Anderson? Order out. We'll need sandwiches."


End file.
